Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 29, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Colella said this in Little Rock (Arkansas) on Friday. She left open whether the offering had been ended permanently or only temporarily. Wal-Mart had offered US customers films from all the major Hollywood studios. The films were available for download at the same time as their release on DVD
were available.
The launch in February with more than 3000 films and TV titles was announced on a grand scale. Among other things, Wal-Mart emphasized that, unlike Apple’s iTunes Store for example, it had the support of all the major studios. At the time, Hewlett-Packard also wanted to win other retailers for its technology platform.
The service was compatible with Windows multimedia software. So films downloaded from Wal-Mart cannot be watched on Apple’s popular iPod players. The films could also be burned to DVDs – but they could then only be played on a computer linked to the account with the Wal-Mart video service.
Film downloads over the Internet have long been regarded as an important future market. So far, however, they have only got moving hesitantly. Among other things, the film studios are afraid of unauthorized copies and therefore impose tough restrictions. In addition, a DVD usually still has better image quality and more extras than Internet downloads. Apple, too, has so far been unable to match the rapid growth in music downloads with its video service.
